


... or are you just happy to see me?

by SunsetOfDoom



Series: never had a sidekick before [2]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Bonus Fight Scene In Between All The Pornography, Canon-Typical Violence, Corso Did Not Want To Know This Was His Kink, Easy Introduction to OC, Feelings Realization, Homoerotic Tie-tying, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, lap dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:15:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29024832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunsetOfDoom/pseuds/SunsetOfDoom
Summary: Avoiding the watchful eye of his rival, Rogun the Butcher, Captain Teo Lunulata has to go to a business meeting on Risha’s arm, acting as her...hired companionfor the night. Corso, stuffed into a rented suit and frustrated with no clear idea why, fully intends to spend the whole night defensive and upset.The situation comes to a head when guards on Rogun’s payroll catch a glimpse of Teo in his tight pants and high heels. Trying to make himself less obvious, Teo dives onto Corso’s lap- lipstick, glitter, platform heels and all. Corso, struggling between his small-town upbringing and unspoken attraction to his friend, is confronted with some things he really didn’t want to know about himself.Among them, that he might like it when his Captain- now looming over him in tall spike heels- pins him to the wall.
Relationships: Corso Riggs/Male Smuggler, Corso Riggs/Smuggler
Series: never had a sidekick before [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129304
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	... or are you just happy to see me?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [November](https://verbose-vespertine.tumblr.com/) and [Spoops](https://miss-spooky-eyes.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing and constructive comments!! You are a treasure and a glory and I love you very much.
> 
> As always, find me at [my tumblr](http://sunsetofdoom.tumblr.com/) and come talk if you want! I'm always delighted to hear from people and whore out my OCs.

Corso leaned against the back of the couch, trying to remember how to tie a tie. His calloused fingers fumbled with the silk, and he sighed, going cross-eyed trying to look down so far.

 _“So you want real cheap-looking,”_ Teo’s voice sounded muffled from the other side of his closed door. _“How cheap are we talking, credits per blowjob?”_

Struggling with the dark red fabric, Corso flinched. He still sort of heard his uncle Robbie’s voice shouting in his head when Teo talked rough in front of ladies.

Risha didn’t seem to notice, or care. She wore a nice, slinky black dress paired with makeup that made her look like a completely different person, which Corso was starting to realize was her way; Risha went out into the world disguised, hardly ever showing her real face. Part of the reason he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her.

“Credits?” She said, pacing past Teo’s closed door. “Oh, no, Captain. The boy you need to look like doesn’t _charge_. Blowjobs cost a pat on the head in the ‘fresher.”

Corso blushed, pursing his lips as he gave up on the stupid tie. Pacing in his general direction, Risha noticed and seemed to take pity on him, wordlessly clicking her way close on her tall shoes and whipping his tie out of his collar with her capable hands. She wore some perfume that smelled like dead flowers, and Corso wrinkled his nose as he watched her do up a thick, fancy knot in the air between them.

Teo snorted behind the door. _“In that case, I’m going to be pulling some stuff out that I haven’t worn since I was sixteen.”_

“I look alright?” Corso asked Risha as she draped the newly-knotted tie over his head, shifting in the stupid monkey-suit they had rented for him. It didn’t fit right, the fabrics were rough against his skin. He had always known that he didn’t look good all dressed up. He was hired muscle, he knew it and he knew he looked like it; he’d given up trying to look like anything else.

Risha tugged the knot up close to his throat, making him wince as it pulled tight. “Serviceable,” she said with one raised eyebrow, the most potent praise he’d gotten out of her to date. “Now don’t mess with it.”

Grumbling under his breath, Corso crossed his arms and waited for Teo to emerge from his bedroom. He just wanted this night to be over, before it had even started. He hated gettin’ all gussied up; he knew he wasn’t the prettiest person in the world, but when he _did_ like how he looked, it was when he was busy, or doing something he was proud of. Stuffed into starched clothes that didn’t fit right wasn’t one of those times. He felt like a teenager at his first dance, and he was awful glad that Akaavi, Guss, and Bowie were all off the ship where they couldn’t make fun of him.

 _“Alright,”_ Teo said from behind the door, closer now. His words were accompanied with a soft, rhythmic thumping sound. _“You can veto this if you want, but I think it works.”_

The door opened, and Corso raised his eyes.

The noises were- heels. High heels, tall under his toes even before the shoe got to the big old spike in the back, black and shiny.

Corso swallowed hard, blinking. Something squirmed deep inside him, the smoldering embers of a thousand jokes- Uncle Robbie used to talk trash about the one and only time he went to Coruscant, about seeing all the “sissy boys” in dress that didn’t fit a man. He could still remember the stitches he and his cousins had laughed themselves into at Rob’s mincing walk, his bad impression of those boys.

The jokes and stories echoed in his head and knotted up his belly with shame, but somehow they weren’t more important than his Captain standing in front of him.

Teo had on a flowy little shirt in a blue so dark it shone, his spring-green skin showing through the thin fabric; Corso had never realized that the blue rings along his tresses also patterned his shoulders and back. The shirt ended over his belly, leaving the curve of his thin waist exposed, and his pants were so low-slung and tight that Corso was surprised he could even move. They clung to every muscle on his strong swimmer’s legs, from his calves to the swell of his backside as he turned around.

Realizing he was clenching his jaw, Corso forced himself to relax. He futzed with the tie, trying to look anywhere but the Captain in his fancy getup. Not looking at him.

Corso wasn’t a jackass, or at least he tried not to be. He wasn’t gonna say anything, not like Robbie had. And he knew now that the galaxy was a whole lot bigger than Ord Mantell, bigger than his little hometown where he used to get insulted till he cried for playing with a pink ball instead of a blue one.

But he still couldn’t look at Teo.

“Corso,” he heard Teo’s voice and tensed up, his shoulders rocketing up to his ears, “you look like you’re waiting for somebody to take you out back and shoot you. What the hell’s going on?”

“Nothin’,'' Corso grunted out with difficulty, trying to look at something that wasn’t Teo. His hipbones were sharp above the waistband of the tight, shiny black pants, and there was a line of blue powder that matched the blue rings all over his body, straight up his flat belly that flexed as he breathed. “I just- I don’t like dressing up, is all.”

The sound of Teo walking was different from Risha; he walked softer, put all his weight on the balls of his feet and barely even let the pointed heel touch the ground. It still made threatening _thump-thump_ s, like a heartbeat, as he strutted his way through the living room.

“Why not?” Teo asked, stopping a few feet in front of him with a hand on a cocked hip. “I mean, we even had to rent this for you- no suits in your closet? C’mon, Corso, we have to look professional sometimes.”

Corso stared him in the face for the first time since he’d come out all dressed up, and Teo was smiling with his lips painted an electric blue that matched the rings dappling his tresses, his shoulders. Black makeup ringed his enormous eyes, dark as the space between the stars.

His own face was set in a frustrated grimace, the stress of the whole situation clenching up his jaw.

An enigmatic smile on his face, Teo leaned over casually, planting one arm on the wall next to where Corso was sitting. “You don’t look half-bad,” he said, with the air of confiding a secret. “And if you wanna look better, I can take you out shopping after this job. We’ll get you something that shows off your shoulders and doesn’t make you look so washed-out.”

“I look like a hired gun,” Corso protested, still glaring, but staring down at his own lap instead of looking at Teo. “I ain’t gonna look like anything else.”

“Corso, the reason most bodyguards look like garbage in suits is because they’re uncomfortable,” Teo shook his tresses down over his arm as he leaned down, eyes searching for Corso’s. “All you have to do is get comfortable and you’ll look a lot better. C’mere.”

Before Corso could argue, Teo took two confident steps in the high heels and towered over him, reaching for the tie. He shut his eyes, not able to face Teo’s almost-bare chest dusted with glitter.

“A windsor knot?” Teo said, his voice skeptical. “Risha, really?”

“It’s what I know how to do, Captain.”

“Learn a knot that actual people use,” and Corso could hear the smile in Teo’s voice. He was unusually pleased tonight, usually the Captain was pretty grim. “This will be much better. And did you have to strangle him?”

The pressure at his throat eased. Corso tried to keep his breathing steady as Teo’s fingers worked right up next to his chest, busily picking at the silk. It only took a few moments for the knot to take shape, for Teo to fix it a lot looser than Risha had.

There was even a ghost of a touch up by his throat as Teo undid the topmost button on his collar. That should have made it easier for Corso to breathe, so he had to wonder why the hell he was struggling to draw in air with Teo’s fingers so close to his skin.

“Take the jacket off, too,” Teo ordered. “Roll up your shirtsleeves, you’ll look a little less formal. More comfortable. It’s just a cantina.”

“Fancy one, though,” Corso managed to say as he took his jacket off. He hoped that he sounded normal, that he didn’t let on that he felt like he was about to pass out. Teo’s arm was still against the wall next to him, close enough to lean his head on and blocking him in place. He tried to ignore it, throwing the jacket onto the couch and obediently undoing the buttons at his wrists. The things were tiny and fiddly; they’d been a hell of a job to get done up one-handed, and they were equally difficult to undo.

“Nothing we haven’t done before,” Teo scoffed as his deft fingers helped with the stupid button. Corso tried to breathe, but the smell of Teo’s cologne was subtle and masculine and _right there_ , which made him feel weirdly lightheaded. “Corso, you’re my right-hand man, and we’re moving up in the world. I’m going to need you with me for shit like this sometimes, and I need you to be able to look like you belong. ‘Cause you _do_. You’re the first mate for an entire industry right now, and it’s only gonna get bigger.”

Corso tugged his wrist away as Teo finished with the button, folding the stiff cuff against itself once, twice, tucking the fabric as he went. Uncle Robbie used to fold his sleeves up like this- Corso’s father bunched them up above his elbows, and Robbie had always ribbed his older brother about looking like a country boy, folding his own shirtsleeves end over end until they stayed.

He could still remember Rob showing him how to fold the cuffs of his very first dress shirt when they went up to the courthouse for Davey’s wedding.

Teo stopped him, touching his fingers, and Corso stilled. “Stop there, right on your forearms. Makes you look stronger, shows off this muscle- here.” One pale green finger trailed down his inner arm, and Corso shivered like a drop of water was rolling all the way down his spine.

Undoing the button on the other side, Corso hurried to get the other one done. He didn’t really want this evening to start at all, but he wanted Teo’s attention off of him so he could breathe normally again. Maybe even start to puzzle out some of the weird shit he was feeling.

“There you go,” Teo said, stepping back. He folded his arms, tilting his head with a smile, and appraised Corso’s modified clothes- the tie now looser and more casual, sleeves rolled up. Corso glanced up as he rolled the second sleeve properly, trying to smile back. “Better?”

His heart pounded. “Better,” he agreed weakly. Hopping down off of the back of the couch, Corso adjusted under his Captain’s watchful eyes. He did feel less like he’d been poured into the stiff formal clothes; they sat a little more naturally on his body. Tucking the shirt in better, tugging at the collar, he stood at an experimental angle. He felt like he could actually stand and walk in this, like it was him doing it and not some imposter who wasn’t even armed.

(Well, that was a lie. He had a sweet little FV-4901 derringer, tentatively called _Stingie,_ in an easily-concealed pocket holster. But he wasn’t layered with his usual armory. Didn’t even have Hewie on him.)

He smoothed back his dreads in their usual ponytail, patted his hands over his cheeks where he’d shaved for this. And as he did, he watched Risha walk over, strict and queenly, and offer Teo her arm. He took it, hanging off of her like a born tart, and Corso blushed to see them so intimate even if he knew it was an act. He wasn’t ever going to look that natural, not in these clothes.

“Shall we?” Teo asked, jerking his head for Corso to follow.

“Yeah,” Corso said, his voice soft. He walked behind the two of them, a little more comfortable in his clothes but still aware of being outside his own area of expertise. “Yeah, I guess we shall.”

* * *

The cantina was really more of a dance club. There were dancers of different species, and flashing lights, and it was crowded and wild; alcohol sloshing everywhere made the floor sticky, and it smelled like smoke and too many bodies.

Corso’s job was to look threatening while Risha scouted for her contact, and while Teo avoided the contact’s hired muscle and tried to get in good with the bartenders. The contact had some tentative ties to Rogun- who, for some reason, still wanted Teo’s ass on a platter for one lousy crate of blasters- so Teo had to stay out of sight and not look like himself. Risha was doing the business talk instead, which suited Corso just fine.

She’d gone into the back room to talk private with the contact, job going smooth, and Corso stood with his back pressed to the wall on this side of the meeting room- all he had to do was wait and listen for any shooting. And fend off the dancers who kept wandering over, asking if he needed anything, offering him things he couldn’t accept as he stared resolutely at their faces and not at any of the spangly foofurrah they were draped in.

The last, a pretty purple Twi’lek, had just given up on him in favor of somebody who would actually buy a dance, when he caught a glimpse of Teo. The Captain was still strutting it in those tall heels, but he was moving awful fast, and even in the low lights Corso could see that his face was flushed.

Moving his arms from where they were folded tight across his chest, Corso leaned forward. If Teo needed something, he was ready to help, but everything had been going well so far, so what-

Really flying on those tall shoes, Teo was still coming at him at a rapid walk. Before Corso could puzzle out what was going on, he was up close, leaning his elbow against the wall next to Corso’s head and pushing his tresses over his shoulder. He was panting, and that wasn’t a blush on his cheek- it looked like he’d been slapped.

“Hey there, sailor,” Teo said, breathing hard, and Corso had to look _up_ at his face. Teo’s familiar full lips and dark eyes were accented by the makeup, almost foreign between the low light and the unfamiliar angle. Flat-footed, they were the same height, but the tall shoes made a huge difference. He felt awful small with Teo looming over him like this. “How’s your night going?”

“Uh,” Corso said, trying to keep up between the handprint on Teo’s cheek and his height in those shoes and that damn cologne, but also the job and Risha waiting in the room at his back. “What?”

Teo flicked his head very quickly out into the room beyond- and Corso followed the motion to see a couple of guys looking around, suspicious in their ill-fitting suits.

The contact’s guys.

Arm still leaned up over Corso’s head and blocking him in, Teo teased one hand against his chest, the shirt that Teo himself had fixed up. The light, brushing touch hit him like a punch to the gut, and all at once Corso struggled to breathe again. “We should sit down,” Teo said.

“I- Uh,” Corso managed. “Sure.”

Teo winked one big black eye, and for a second Corso could see all the stars in those dark eyes as he fisted a hand in Corso’s shirt and dragged him away from the wall.

Letting himself be moved, Corso stumbled along in Teo’s grasp and sat down when pushed. There was a little love-seat couch right outside the meeting-room door, and Teo arranged him on it with easy touches that burned against Corso’s skin.

“Stay low and be quiet,” Teo said as he slid into Corso’s lap, his professional tone at odds with the sinuous way he was moving his body, knees spread over Corso’s thighs. “The contact’s with Rogun, one of the goons clocked me. I stuffed her in the lift and sent it to the basement, no idea how long it’s gonna take until she gets back up here.”

Corso swallowed hard, trying to make his brain work as Teo’s warmth sank into his legs, that glitter underneath the see-through shirt flashing in the blinky lights. “Shootout isn’t ideal, I’m not that armed. We got a way out?”

“Closest would be the roof-” Teo glanced around, and Corso caught a glimpse of a suit out of the corner of his eye as Teo lowered his head and- his heartbeat skyrocketed- nuzzled his face into Corso’s shoulder, lips moving so close to his neck that Corso could feel every puff of air on his skin. “- but we’ve got no way off, we’d have to call for a ride and that’d take time. Risha has the datapad because I can’t carry anything.”

“I got a comm,” Corso said, his voice thick. Of course Teo couldn’t carry anything; those pants looked painted on. “Right pocket.”

“Okay. Try to look like we’re making out,” Teo huffed a little laugh against his neck and Corso felt it all the way down his spine. “I’m gonna grab it and see if I can get us some kind of ride, because otherwise it’s a real long way down off the side.”

Corso stayed totally still as Teo’s fingers went to his hip, confused and a little miserable, wondering if it was possible to vibrate out of his skin. The smell of Teo’s cologne, those damn heels, and the sheer fact that he was sitting here in public with a _boy_ in his lap- those things made him feel sort of sick, but also hot all over. Teo’s hand reached into his pocket, touch sliding over the derringer’s grip-

Pulling back, Teo looked at him, one brow lifted.

“It’s a gun,” Corso said as Teo opened his mouth to make the joke; he couldn't deal with the thought of hearing it out loud. “Didn’t wanna come unarmed.”

A tiny smile curled Teo’s painted lips. “What’s her name?” He asked, hand sliding along Corso’s hip in a way that kinda made him want to lay down and die.

“S-Stingie,” Corso said, wondering why Teo was wasting precious moments asking about his gun’s name. He always asked; Teo knew his arsenal better than anyone else on the crew, even Akaavi. “FV model, a derringer. She’s small, but she packs a punch.”

“Put that one on my tombstone,” Teo said as he snuck his hand into Corso’s pocket, the other one this time. Corso forced out a shaky little laugh. The feeling of Teo’s clever fingers reaching so intimately into his pocket, combined with the adrenaline of being in an imminent high-stakes shootout, made him feel laser-focused and a little high.

He had a- a boy. Sitting on his lap, covered in glitter, in high heels and tight pants. With a flare of shame, he wondered what his family would have to say if they saw him now. What kinds of jokes Robbie would make.

But this boy was his best friend. This boy was _Teo_ , who had taken him in and given him a family, and all Corso could do was sit there and wonder what the Hell he was even feeling as Teo curled up against his chest, tapping madly on the comm. Catching movement in the corner of his eye, Corso pulled Teo close to shield him, arm around his waist like a lover.

“Almost got it,” Teo muttered, tap-tapping furiously at the comm’s tiny buttons, “Almost...”

Teo rubbed his made-up face against Corso’s shirt, frustrated, and Corso just pulled him in even tighter, something in his chest swelling with the tiny liberty he was taking. How many times over the last couple months had he wanted to do this, just pick Teo up and hold him close? How many times had he had the thought and then turned away, ashamed of himself? He could let himself have this. He’d feel bad about it later.

Burying his face in Teo’s warm tresses, he breathed in and let the unique smell of Teo’s skin fill up his senses. Less of that fancy cologne he wore that made Corso feel all confused; this was the natural smell of his skin, his tresses doing whatever pheromone thing they did that kept them fresh and clean. The tips of the tendrils twitched against his arm, and Corso smiled; they were doing those happy wiggles, the ones that meant he was doing something right.

“S’cuse me, boys,” a Ryl drawl came from above them, “but are you using this couch for business or just waiting for your ride?”

Horribly self-aware, Corso let go of Teo immediately, his hands going to his sides and pressing down against the couch cushions.

Whipping up, Teo’s head turned so fast his neck cracked. “I’m sorry?”

“Pretty boy, if you’re not making this club any money, go cuddle somewhere else.”

The note of challenge in her voice gave Corso an immediate stomach ache. That was the kinda tone that Teo took offense at.

“You think I’m no good at my job?” Teo said. Corso let his head fall back against the couch, looking at the ceiling. Yeah. There it was. His Captain, always competitive.

Not waiting for an answer, Teo rose up on his knees, looming over Corso yet again as he stretched his arms up over his head. (Corso heard yet more light cracking noises from his joints.) He stopped there for a moment, considering, listening to something that Corso couldn’t hear as his deep black eyes soaked up the dim lights of the club.

Teo’s hips started to move.

Corso could feel his heartbeat all through his body, hot all over. Just a minute ago he’d been content as could be, and now he was so out of his depth that he was gonna drown, die choking and spluttering because Teo didn’t know when to stop.

Hands coming down, flipping his tresses over his shoulders and swaying to distant music, Teo moved with a sly rhythm, like he was drifting in the water. He looked the way he sometimes did in the shipboard tank; not swimming laps but floating, moving so subtly with the artificial currents that he appeared to be still until you really noticed how much work his body was doing against the push and pull of the water. The tiny shirt he had on was insignificant against the path of his hands, dragging halfway down his slim chest as he pulled the collar down.

Lips parting as he looked down at Corso, Teo smiled and settled his hands on Corso’s shoulders. His thumbs playing with the collar he had fixed, he swayed back and forth a little as he loosened Corso’s tie so much that it hung almost halfway down his chest, clever fingers picking at the buttons of his shirt until his skin was bared to the cool air of the club.

Corso sat there, his sweating palms pressed so hard to the material of the couch that he was losing feeling in his hands. He couldn’t look anywhere, ignore anything; there was nothing he could do to avoid this terrifying reality in front of him.

Teo nipped at his own bottom lip with one sharp tooth, and then winked. His shoulders and hips swiveling in tandem, he rested one burning-hot hand against Corso’s bared sternum and raised the other over his head, waving like a trick-rider until somebody put a glass in his hand.

Over and around the screaming in his head, Corso wondered where the hell Teo had learned to show off like this. Strict, neurotic Teo who brewed his own alcohol and then didn’t even drink it, somehow knew how to dance like a glitterstim addict.

Drawing the long-stemmed glass down, Teo sipped at the sparkling something-or-other, and then smiled with all his sharp teeth as he lowered it further- and pressed the cool glass to Corso’s lips.

Feeling like he might choke, Corso opened his mouth just a hair. The drink was thickly alcoholic in a way that reeked of artificial fruit, enhancing rather than covering any of the paint-stripper smell, and the taste of the few drops Teo got into his mouth was pretty terrible even as it made him feel like he was dying of pleasure.

Still gyrating his hips, Teo laughed; and oh stars above, _that_ wasn’t for the crowd. That was _real_. It interrupted his smug little smile and crinkled up his eyes, his bare belly trembling, and it was Corso he found so amusing. Handing the glass off to a curious onlooker, he brought his hand back down and, still laughing, brushed the remains of the drink off of Corso’s mouth with one finger. It was his trigger-finger, Corso could feel the callus where he was so used to firing the gun Corso gave him, and his face was still shining with that private laugh that only Corso recognized.

Shaking, Corso realized that despite his best and most bewildered efforts, his cock was aching, desperately hard right underneath Teo’s legs. The twin points of warmth where Teo’s hands were touching him were drawing a line of fire straight down his belly and he wanted- he _wanted-_

Teo’s expression shifted, that laugh falling off and being replaced with a familiar calculation. His chin dipped as he looked down- and then jerked back up as he looked Corso straight in the face, big black eyes wide and startled.

Corso could have sworn his heart stopped with fear. His hard-on wilted with sheer animal terror and he wondered whether Teo was gonna hit him.

“Corso?”

Risha. Oh gods that was Risha coming out of the meeting room, seeing them together, stars fucking above-

_“That’s him!”_

“Fuck,” Teo swore, and one clever hand went to Corso’s pocket and pulled. Stingie flashed in his hand as he swirled around, tresses flying, and plugged one suited goon straight in the chest.

The air exploded with screams and blaster fire, patrons wailing and diving out of the way, the music continuing to play underneath it all. The flashing lights were gonna make aiming impossible.

Moving on instinct, Corso wrapped his arms around Teo’s waist and heaved them both up, toppling over the back of the couch just as the fake leather was dappled with screeching blaster burns. He landed on the hard, sticky floor, slapping the ground with his arm and rolling off the momentum, trying to keep Teo on top of him so he wouldn’t get hurt.

He let go of Teo’s waist as soon as he could, the warmth of his friend’s skin too much to handle in the middle of a firefight, and realized Risha had ducked down with them as she emerged from the meeting room.

“What the hell was that?” She asked, hands going up to her hair. It was pinned up in an elaborate style that Corso hadn’t paid any attention to before, but now he realized that the sticks keeping it in place were actually small, wicked-looking knives. She handed him one, wrapping her hand around the other.

“That’s on me,” Teo said, coming up almost underneath Corso where he was still half-prone on the ground. “I tipped off one of Rogun’s guys, sorry.”

“You couldn’t tell me?”

“Didn’t want you to telegraph it to the client,” Teo said as he came up on one knee. “Gimme the knife- Rish, you’re the closest we have to a sharpshooter, you get the gun.”

“ _One_ gun,” Risha grumbled, handing the knife over. “How did these lumbering idiots get blasters in around the sensors?”

“Bribes, probably,” Teo said, cocking his head. “Corso-”

“On it,” Corso responded, his whole body electrified. He wasn’t armed or armored, but this was exactly where he was comfortable. Grabbing Teo’s free hand, he placed the other knife in Teo’s palm and folded his fingers around it. Instead, he went for a dropped bottle on the floor; he lifted the stupid loosened tie over his head, wrapped it around his hand for protection, and then grabbed the neck of the bottle and broke it against the floor.

It shattered exactly the way he’d meant it to, with a satisfying noise to boot, and he clenched his hand around his new weapon with grim satisfaction. He didn’t have to think about what had just happened on that couch, not right now.

“Cover me,” he told Risha. He saw her head tilt down- a little glint of metal told him she was using a makeup mirror to look around the corner- and got his legs under him.

“He’s about a body-length away at your ten-o-clock,” Risha said, her voice low under all the screaming. “They’re waiting for us; they know we don’t have anywhere to go.”

Corso decided there was no point in making the bastards wait, and lunged out of cover.

Bingo. The guy was right in front of him, blaster up and ready- Corso side-stepped his first uncoordinated shot, kicked him in the stomach, and knocked his arm away, broken bottle cutting into his forearm. The guy yelled, dropping the blaster, and Corso threw a punch with his off-hand and dove for the dropped gun.

Blaster shots were still ringing out, the floor of the club now empty as the five armed men converged on the ruined mess of the couch. Two of them were hunkered behind the pillars that kept the ceiling up, one was advancing on the smoking hunk of furniture, one was down where Risha had gotten a good hit in.

As for the last one, Corso got his off-hand around the dropped gun and got tackled for his trouble, the big guy’s arms wrapped around his back as though that’d keep him from pulling the trigger.

This was becoming more like a barfight than anything, and Corso hadn’t been in one of those in a while; but muscle memory was his saving grace as he wrenched around at the waist, leaving the big guy hanging onto his shoulders as he got some distance between their midsections. He swiped around with the busted bottle, his aim true. The guy exhaled, hard and a little wet, as the jagged glass slipped into his belly. Corso pushed him back, dropping the bottle and tossing the gun into his right hand to take aim and plug him in the head, both sparing him a slow death by bleeding out and making sure he couldn’t make any last berserker charges.

Swinging up and around, he aimed at the guy advancing on the couch- all of them pale Human men, which even Corso thought was weird- and dropped him just as a bolt hissed past his own arm. Corso ran for the nearest cover, one end of the bar (the expensive bottles were all off the wall already, the work of a quick bartender) and hopped up and over to crouch down underneath.

The mirror behind the bar had shattered. Corso’s boots crunched the glass, but he leaned down and grabbed the biggest piece he could find, figuring he could use Risha’s mirror trick himself.

He held it up, but all he could see was the ceiling, and the edge of a light; he raised the fragment up, higher, a little higher, catching glimpses of hair and shadows- if he got it about half a foot higher and tilted it down he’d be able to see the combat field-

With a buzz he felt all the way down to his bones, a blaster bolt hit the mirror fragment and shattered it in his hand. Corso yelped, his grip releasing as his fingers came away bloody. He gritted his teeth. Lucky he still had the fucking tie; he set the blaster down, a shitty PX-110 which was already overheating, and wrapped up his hand, chewing on the inside of his cheek to get through it. The silk almost refused to stay, slippery enough on its own and uncooperative against the blood seeping out of his middle fingers, but he forced the knot to hold out of sheer panicked focus.

He had to get out from behind the bar. He was safe back here, but Teo and Risha were still out there.

Moving at a crouch and holding his left hand carefully to keep the tie on, he waddled along the back-side of the bar, the shelves all stocked up with seltzer and clean glasses, stashes of half-inhaled spice lined up neatly next to the bartenders’ purses and billfolds, apparently necessary for anyone on Nar Shaddaa to get through a shift.

One Rodian woman, lying on the ground with wide eyes, looked up at him beseechingly; all he could do was put his finger to his lips to tell her to be quiet. With any luck, they’d take these guys out and be on their way out before anyone called whatever passed for security forces on Nar Shaddaa.

There. A gap in the bar to let the dancers in and out. Corso put a knee down to the ground, leaning around the corner very carefully.

Three guys left. They were all advancing on the couch, blasters pointed; they’d abandoned cover, because apparently they were morons.

Corso got one in his sights, pulling the trigger- but the finicky PX pulled to the left, and he singed the guy’s hair instead. Hand coming up to his burned ear, the guy yelled something to his partners and they swiveled to face Corso, already aiming again.

Across the back of the couch, like an avenging angel in black leather, Teo vaulted up and over, knives ready.

Desperate to take out the others before they turned on Teo, Corso plugged the guy on the right, who went down clutching his chest. Center guy was occupied by the furious Nautolan with the knives, so Corso took aim at the guy on the left, missing once and then twice (a bottle exploded behind him as the jackass returned fire) before the PX sent one finally-cooperative bolt into his kidneys and he folded to the floor.

Pushing up close like they were dancing, Teo got hip-to-hip with the goon in the center and pushed the blade into his gut, coating his pretty hands and nice clothes in blood.

“Teo!” Corso yelled, frantic. “We gotta _go!”_

“Got it!” Teo pushed the guy backwards and sprinted for the entrance. Risha ducked out from behind the couch, kneeling down in the puddle of blood to grab the middle guy’s blaster. She walked forward as Corso stood, brushing himself off, and she dangled Stingie by her pretty little handle, index finger and thumb pressed against the pearl inlay as though she were poison.

“Your gun,” Risha said, pressing the derringer against his chest where his shirt was still half-unbuttoned. Stingie’s metal frame was cold against his skin. “It’s awfully.... small.”

“She got the job done,” Corso glowered, annoyed.

“Hallway’s clear!” Teo hollered. “ _Move it,_ crew!”

* * *

“Doorway’s clear!” Teo said into the smog of the Nar Shaddaa nighttime, his nose wrinkling up at the taste of the air. He leaned halfway back into the hall, catching Risha there. “Where’s Corso?”

“Behind-” She gestured. “He went to get my knives.”

They’d traded off weapons a number of times as a few other goons came for them through the hallways and stairwells, Corso making sure that Teo and Risha each had one decent gun. Teo tallied up what they had. Three looted blasters, most with firing issues; Corso had done battlefield triage on one, which Risha was now carrying, but it was really only good for a few shots before the casing started to overheat. And Teo wasn’t going to take the chance that more people weren’t waiting in the wings to jump them as soon as possible.

The roof was crowded with water tanks and heaters, belching smoke and vapor into the already-foggy air and ruining any visibility. Teo crept forward, his bare feet making no noise against the rough insulated material. He clung to a blaster, even though it was really only good as a bluff or possibly a club, and to a wire garrotte he’d taken off of one of the hallway guards.

He’d left the heels behind. They weren’t worth the trouble of carting out of a firefight.

Scuttling like a prey animal, Teo got his back to one tank, heat radiating from the metal. The haze of smog and neon made every shape a threat and this roof could be hiding just about anything- hell, maybe those guards in the hall hadn’t come from the ground floor, maybe they landed up here and then made their way down to the club, and they’d left a rearguard up here just in case...

Absently, he wondered if their contact had gotten out alive. Rogun’s middlemen never seemed to survive these little encounters.

Teo brought his blaster up, aiming around the side of the tank as he checked over what he could see. Two more tanks, probably more hot water and septic. A vent, wafting white smoke. No humanoid figures. He glanced behind him, Risha’s shadowed form in the doorway, and waved her over as he set his sights on the next tank.

They zigzagged across the roof, taking cover, and Teo motioned Risha over when he had a decent enough idea that nobody was within the fifteen feet of visible space around him; outside of that radius there was just fog and noise.

His skin crawled. It felt like a horror holo. He could hear voices, but he couldn’t see anyone. Traffic roared outside of the boundaries of this little roof, one of a million on the skyline, but he couldn’t see anything except blurs of neon light in the white fog.

A shape appeared at the edge of his vision, right next to the open space of neon and noise that was probably the road. He swung his blaster up, ready to fire- and relaxed his trigger finger.

The shape was a speeder. Slim, decent construction. Tommie came through on that favor; Teo could’ve kissed her. He promised himself that if they got out of this alive, he’d never have another forger do his art again, all his business went to Tommie from now on.

With his blaster still up, checking all around him, Teo skittered over to the speeder and waved frantically to Risha. They had to go before something came out of the fucking fog, or up from the lower levels, or _something_ because his life was determined to turn into a shitshow.

Teo wondered what the hell he’d ever done to piss off Rogun so bad. One crate of blasters wasn’t worth- how many suited goons, tonight? Twelve? Twelve guys. That math just didn’t work out. Something niggled at him from that line of thought- he’d spent years hearing about Rogun’s reputation, how he was tough but fair. None of this added up.

He knelt down, checking the speeder. Brake lines were fine. Engine, also fine. No sign of sabotage or crappy construction; she’d run perfectly fine, which meant if they didn’t get shot he had a responsibility to get the thing back to Tommie in good condition.

“Corso, what the hell-”

“Fine,” Corso sounded as though he was trying to push Risha away, “I’m fine, let’s go.”

“Your hand-”

“No arguing,” Teo said, trying to make his voice steely as he checked the fuel pump. He had to put away the costume of tonight and go back to being the Captain; the crop top and high heels had been a welcome break, and now he got to put the mask back on. “Get on, we’re gonna have to pile up.”

“Corso- what are you doing?” Risha had a habit of getting self-righteous over minor details of her plans, so Teo didn’t think to look up. “First you get half your hand sliced off and now this?”

“What?” Teo whipped around.

Risha stood with her arms crossed, gesturing at Corso like a five-year-old indicating that her classmate was eating the glue, her hair frizzing in the damp air and making her look a little deranged.

On the back of the bike, Corso shifted, his jaw set. He held his hand protectively in front of his chest, and the tie Teo had done up with so much care was wrapped around his fingers. Not the way he’d done it to break the bottle, either- it was tied tight and cutting off circulation.

“You’re going to throw off the bike’s equilibrium,” Risha huffed. “I don’t care if you want to bleed all over, but I’m not ending my night as a smear on the pavement because you don’t want the middle seat. You weigh the most, you sit in the middle.”

Teo controlled his expression as he stared at Corso, whose face was turned to look at the vague lights of speeders passing in the traffic lanes. He let a few long moments pass with no orders and no commentary, thick and awkward. Risha tapped her foot, clearly waiting for him to say something.

Internal clock ticking down the time they spent helpless in the open, Teo took a hard look at his options. He could order Corso to move or to let them look at his hand; and that’d cause a struggle, because Corso could just say _no_ and where the hell was the illusion of Teo’s authority going to go then? He and Corso had a good understanding of one another’s limits, and Teo knew damn well that Corso was only willing to do what he was told up to a point.

Guilt, an old and familiar friend, made itself at home in his gut. Barefoot on a Nar Shaddaa roof, Teo officially ranked this as the most regrettable lap dance he’d ever given. And there was plenty of competition for that particular honor.

(It had been fun, though. Fun and sexy, left him feeling hot and brilliant and on top of the world for just a few glorious minutes. A stupid indulgence that scared the shit out of his best friend. He was painfully aware that if he had the chance to do it again, he probably would.)

“Risha,” he said, his voice quiet. The softer he spoke, he’d found, the more attention his crew paid. “Let it go. Get on the speeder.”

Her eyes widened, shoulders tilting backwards defensively. “He’s going to throw off the bike’s-”

“You don’t have to worry about that, because you’re not driving.” Teo interrupted.

“Are you _kidding-_ ”

“Get on the bike,” Teo ordered, swinging a leg over and putting light pressure on the ignition. It rumbled to life underneath him, the vibration echoing up into his hips and making him shudder; giving his best friend a lapdance had left him so turned-on he thought he’d die from it. He’d forgotten that all through the gunfight, but now it was coming back with a vengeance.

Grumbling, Risha wedged herself in between Teo and Corso, her frame a buffer between the two of them. She settled deceptively-dainty hands on Teo’s bare waist and leaned against his back, her cleavage warm on Teo’s skin.

Kicking the speeder into gear, Teo ignored how much he wished it was Corso leaning against him instead.

* * *

Corso slammed the privacy curtain shut on his bunk, belly-flopping onto the bedcover and covering his head with the pillow. He didn’t care that he reeked of blaster fire, he didn’t care that he was still in the ruined suit, and he didn’t give a good goddamn that his hand needed kolto and a decent bandage; in fact, the throbbing in his fingers felt like the only decent thing in the world. All he wanted to do was stop thinking and, when that inevitably failed, sulk like a pouting child.

The ride back to the ship had been tense and a little terrifying. Corso spent the entire ride painfully aware that he was fucking up the bike’s equilibrium, and if they got into any kind of high-speed chase that could be the difference between life and death. Risha had actually kicked him because he was holding onto her too hard.

He just couldn’t handle touching Teo. Not his stupid slim waist or his ripped up little shirt or his hipbones peeking over those damn pants. He couldn’t stand it, any of it, but he couldn’t say that out loud without sounding like he’d lost his mind, either, so he just set his jaw and pouted. Despite the fact that he was a grown man, that these were his _coworkers._ His _employer_ , fucking technically, despite the fact that it was a strange word to put on Teo.

Teo, who he hadn’t been able to look at, not once. Corso rolled over, facing the wall, and folded the pillow over his head. The tangled knot of emotions in his belly only pulled tighter.

There were too many things to do. He had to get up; he couldn’t just sit here throwing a hissy fit.

Despite his own rational thoughts, Corso curled his knees towards his chest and folded up tight. Memories of the night flashed at him- Teo’s hands at his collar tying his tie, Teo pressing the glass to his lips, Teo starting to laugh in his lap. Teo leaning over him, pinning him in place and looking down his flat Nautolan nose, black eyes gleaming with dirty promises.

A smothered groan made its way out of his chest. Corso wasn’t that worried about being heard- the soundproofing on the privacy curtains was so good that the only thing he’d ever heard through it was some muffled yelling when Bowdaar had a nightmare. He coulda sung an aria in here- if he knew how- and nobody would know. Not that he would; he still felt like he could be overheard, long instinct from sharing a room with Billie growing up and then sleeping in barracks with the Brigade. He’d never _not_ shared a room. He had learned to be quiet.

Especially, as the memories of Teo looking him up and down like a meal played in front of his closed eyes, when he was dizzy and sick with arousal.

He’d managed to keep it under control. Kept it smothered and quiet at the back of his head. But his cock didn’t know a damn thing about the revulsion eating away at his belly, or the logic that Teo was his best friend. At even the slightest recollection of the pretty boy dancing on top of him, his dick was perking up. Even though it made the rest of him wanna die.

Considering, he twitched his arm in the general direction of his lap. If he could just... get this out of his system...

His rolled-up sleeve tightened as he flexed the muscle there, and a shiver rolled down his spine as he remembered Teo trailing one fingertip down the inside of his arm. His dick throbbed, desperate and untouched where it was trapped against his thigh.

The memory upended into Robbie, rolling up his cuff for him and making jokes about how he was a man now and he oughta know how to clean up. Nausea rolled his stomach end over end like a speeder crash. Rob was dead; they were all dead, and what would they say if they could see him now? If they saw what he did tonight?

If Sara Riggs saw her son with Teo dancing on his lap, what would she say?

Corso couldn’t tell if he was about to bust untouched or throw up in his bunk. Clenching his left hand down on the wound, making it blaze with pain, he decided that he at least had to _pick one_. He couldn’t sit here and think at the same time about his dead family and his hard-on. Being pulled between the two was sick.

As he’d gotten very good at doing over the last few years, Corso shut the door on the ranch house inside his head, putting his family away. They were dead and gone; he couldn’t grieve them all day and still get the washing done. Trying not to think anything, he forced himself to sit up, moving slow to keep his stomach from turning on him again.

His left hand throbbed something awful. The bleeding was pretty stanched by now, but the tie was ruined- it hadn’t done much good as a bandage. All he’d done was ruin something pretty and delicate. Corso stared at the shape of it in the darkness, something he couldn’t actually see but that resolved in front of his eyes anyways because he knew where it wasn’t, until he shook himself.

Swaying from tiredness, he got up onto his knees, unbuckling the belt and putting it on the nightstand, shoes kicked off outside the bunk already. Reaching up, he undid the tie holding his hair back, shaking his head and letting his dreads flop down over his shoulders as his headache instantly eased.

He reached up to his chest, half the buttons on the shirt undone or flat-out missing. The place where Teo had rested a hand, right over his heart, felt like it had fingerprints tattooed there. Like if he looked down, he’d be able to see them there, a remnant of Teo’s warm touch.

Not letting himself think about it, Corso reached down and undid his pants, pulling down clumsily until his dick bobbed free in the cool air. He shuddered, biting down hard on his lip, as he thought about Teo tipping that drink into his mouth. Teo touching his chest. Teo staring down into his eyes and _daring_ him to say stop. That steely challenge in his deep black eyes, a glimmer of smug confidence.

His head full of a hot red fog that was making everything blur, Corso tried to remember it right. Teo had pressed him up against the wall, pinning him there with a delicate hand on his chest that both of them knew damn well Corso wouldn’t be able to remove. Teo’s arm had been planted firmly over his head, looming over him like a threat at an angle that made Teo look like a different man.

He wrapped his hand around the base of his dick, moaning in relief as he fell forward- his left forearm hit the wall and he leaned there, forehead pressed to the cool metal, as he fisted over himself desperately. Blocked in and trapped with nowhere to escape, Teo smiled with that cool calculation that meant he knew he had the upper hand. Corso was left helpless as he felt another man’s hands on him for the first time, clever fingers trailing down and unbuttoning his shirt without asking permission.

Turning his face against his upper arm, he could feel how fever-warm his cheeks were with a violent blush. In a decade of embarrassing sex fantasies, this was the worst, the most forbidden and terrifying, and after hours of teasing he was already so close to cumming that he could feel it racing through his midsection. Corso gasped for air against his own arm, like a ronto overheating at the races, and he couldn’t think, there was nothing left to think, not when the specter of Teo was holding him still with no effort at all and those dark eyes were boring into his, saying, _this isn’t what good boys from your hometown do, is it? This is wrong, you_ know _it’s wrong, and it’s happening because you’re a dirty little-_

“Teo,” the pleading whisper tore itself from his throat, a hushed shameful noise against his own skin as his breathing stuttered, “ _Teo-teo-teoteot-T-”_

Gasping and whining, Corso came stammering Teo’s name open-mouthed and wet into the ruined sleeve of his ripped-up shirt, hips jerking as though he had anywhere to go as he spilled on his pants, his bedspread.

Blessed silence echoed inside his head for a few long moments.

The dizziness hit him full-force then, like a smack upside the head. Shaky disorientation washed over him and he reeled, trying to hold himself up, knees aching as his thighs trembled.

For a split second, Corso was closer to crying than he’d been in years, his face pressed against his sleeve and his cock slowly going limp in his hand, a lump rising in his throat as the shame doused him.

He didn’t wanna think about it. Numbly, he reached down, undoing his blaster-burned and bloodstained shirt to clean up where he’d spent all over the bed- _all_ over, holy shit- and roll his pants down his shaking legs as he bundled up the stained clothes into a ball and threw them against the foot of his bunk. He’d deal with them later.

Bare-skinned, covered in the smells of the battlefield but abandoning the notion of getting back up, Corso felt around the bed for his scarf to wrap his hair up. It was next to his pillow, where he always left it, so at least he didn’t have to turn on the light and face himself after _that_.

His fingers slipped against the fabric, and the farmhouse door in his memories slammed open, the recollection that he usually found so comforting: his mama wrapping his hair up just like hers when he was too little to do it himself, a nighttime ritual that they shared. Her work-callused hands on his small ones, showing him how she tied her hair up and doing his to match.

Corso pressed his palms down over his eyes until he saw bright phantom colors, wishing like hell he could just cry and get it over with. It wouldn’t make sense of the tangled feelings, but it might let him off the hook of thinking about it if he was busy sobbing like a little kid with a broken heart.

But the tears didn’t come. They hadn’t for years. He had to curl up in his empty bed, aching for something that he didn’t have the courage to _name_ let alone do anything about.

He hoped Teo’s night was finishing off better than his own, at least.

* * *

Teo scrubbed the towel over and around his tresses, careful of his gills. He hated showers; the constant dribble of moisture confused his amphibious body, wavering between opening his gills and letting him continue to take air into his lungs. The thin, slitted openings were still flexing delicately against his fingers as he sorted the heap of his tresses over his shoulders, trying not to drip all over his floor.

He didn’t smell like smoke anymore, or blood. Half the glitter was still stuck to him somewhere, but that was the peril of wearing glitter, not really something he could fix.

This really had been more fun when he was sixteen, discovering that other sentients found his body intriguing. The whole glitterstim-slut routine had been new and fun and wild for a few years, before Eden gave him more responsibilities on the ship and he forgot all about the clubs and the lights.

As an adult, he found it lacking. His feet hurt and the glitter itched and his lips were peeling from the lipstick; even the blue makeup he’d used to rouge up the slit on his belly had taken some scrubbing to get off, and now he was sore. Sure, he was pretty for a few hours, but he didn’t find it as emotionally fulfilling to get his ass pinched at twenty-six as he had when he was a teenager.

Especially not when the only person he wanted to look at him, wouldn’t.

Teo sat down on his bed, content with his bedroom. His big desk had hidden compartments where he hid everything from ledgers to stimulant pills, he had three beers tucked up in his ventilation system where they waited as a reward for when he managed to get all his work done. There were military-grade ration bars in his bedside table in case he worked through dinner, taped to the underside of the drawer, and his datapad had all his work and all his side projects neatly catalogued behind four different passcodes.

Everything in his life was arranged practically, sensibly, exactly the way he needed it. And it had worked so well for years, he’d run everything with as few problems as possible until he got the idiot idea of _falling in love with his best friend_.

Flopping backwards, he splayed out on his bedspread like a starfish.Forget Corso's not wanting to press up behind Teo on the speeder bike, the poor guy had barely been able to look at him. Starting when Teo had indulged his private fantasy of doing Corso’s tie for him, and escalating to a new plateau of _bad_ when he had basically molested his best friend in a crowded club.

Guilt pooled in his belly, somewhere above the raging arousal between his legs. Fuck, that had been so _good_ at the time. Flying high, running a con that was in the middle of spiraling into chaos and hauling control back to the one thing he could actually do. Luckily the pants were so tight that his dick had stayed tucked away in the pouch between his legs, his wrenching need hidden by lucky evolutionary design.

Corso hadn’t been that lucky. Teo wondered how long he’d been hard before Teo came back to himself enough to look, _when_ in the dance he’d managed to affect his not-into-boys best friend.

It wasn’t _his_ fault he’d learned how to give a lapdance from a Twi’lek whose career had once relied on her ability to get even the most xenophobic Imperial officers hard. It was a skill.

Even remembering the innocent-lamb look Corso had worn made Teo shudder, and his cock twitched, the head showing through the lips between his legs as it took advantage of his nudity to make itself known. He struggled with himself for a few moments; after three hours of being stared at and running for his life, he couldn’t quite shake his constant alertness, wasn’t ready to fade off into fantasy. Eyes tracking his own walls, he stroked his belly-slit absently and reminded himself that the only person that could override the lock on his door, the _only_ person in the Galaxy that the biometric lock would let in was... Corso.

Guilty, despairing, and ruthlessly turned on, Teo gave up and reached down.

If he just got it out of his system. Maybe he could stop this stupid love-sick pining and get over it. Maybe he could accept that Corso didn’t want him and never would if he just... indulged.

It sure was a good thing, Teo thought as he wrapped a hand around his cock and whined deep in his throat, that he was so good at lying to himself.

That frightened look on his face, Corso’s big eyes dark brown in the dim lighting, the way his skin felt under Teo’s fingertips- they all mixed up into potent fantasy fodder, and Teo leaned his head back to stare at his ceiling. Months he’d been in love with his best friend, and he’d never surrendered to this. His confused feelings for Corso felt too pure to ruin by conjuring up images of him with his shirt half-undone, looking cornered as Teo rode his lap. But now that the situation had been _handed_ to him, Teo figured he may as well take advantage.

Raising his free hand, he rubbed at the back of his neck, his tresses curling inquisitively around his own wrist. Corso was so _pretty_. He’d never quite thought of him like that until Teo strapped on the heels and then suddenly he was looking _down_ and Corso was looking _up_ and the light hit those gorgeous cheekbones of his in a different way, his eyes were softer, dreads framing his face with cute twisting little curls. And he _blushed_ , easier to see up close on his deep brown skin.

Teo sighed, rubbing his thumb idly at the base of his cock as he thought about the things he could do if Corso would let him. The things he did with other shy boys, the ones that turned out not to be so shy once the lights were off.

Not that Corso would ever go with it. A flare of a different heat joined the arousal in his belly, and Teo fed the anger, eager to feel something that wasn’t tepid guilt. Corso wouldn’t go for that, would he- back on Ord Mantell, Denton even said it was one of the guys in Viidu’s crew that punched him when he tried to ask another boy out for drinks. Could’ve been Corso; Teo never asked. So maybe there wouldn’t be any convincing at all. Maybe it would be a fight.

Teo wondered if, in that moment of panic and mutual knowledge of an accidental erection, Corso had considered hitting him. Thought about it. Maybe even tensed up for it before the gunfight happened; it had all gone to hell so fast.

Well, Corso might have been stronger, but Teo was smarter. Arching his back and stroking his hand over the head of his cock as he brought his other hand down to play with his belly-slit, Teo gritted his teeth and forced more anger up to feed the fire. Fucking Corso. Playing around with those big sad eyes while he was probably thinking about how disgusting Teo was for fooling around with other boys, like it was _unnatural_ instead of a totally normal thing that Corso’s cousin-fucking cult hometown forbade to control people. Like his stupid self-centered worldview was the only right and good thing in the Galaxy.

Trying to stay angry, Teo did his best to imagine fighting his best friend, _really_ fighting him. Not a friendly wrestling match or a punch on the arm but a knock-down drag-out combat where Corso went for his teeth and he grabbed a fistful of Corso’s hair and they bore each other down to the floor, biting and cursing. The kind of fight that was too close to sex for comfort. And he could use all his weight, all his leverage to pin Corso to the ground and sink his predator’s teeth into soft warm brown skin, marking him. Startling a noise out of him at the animalistic action, because he couldn’t tell if Teo was still in control of himself.

Baring his teeth at the empty room, Teo sighed out a whine as he squeezed his hand tighter. Gods, what an image: leaving a bite mark on one of those perfect collarbones, teasing him from under that crisp white shirt, red irritation just barely visible to anyone who cared to look.

Cheerful, comfortable, virtuous Corso, ruffled and marked? The image was too good to pass up. Breathing harder, Teo focused his thoughts on that- on roughing him up, tearing up his clothes, startling him, _scaring_ him until he wore that lost-lamb look again. Teo groaned under his breath, smoothing his thumb over the droplets his cock was starting to leak.

He’d pull Corso into some storage closet after buying him a perfect new suit, and then wreck it just for the pleasure of seeing it destroyed. He’d scratch and bite and mark Corso’s lovely skin and push him to his knees and take what he wanted from that gorgeous mouth.

Imagination fleshed out the details. Corso would have that lost, blindsided look on his face from the lap-dance, the same screwed-up grimace from the moment he’d tasted that Sunrise Teo poured into his mouth; the one that made him look as though he was about to cry. Chest heaving, he’d look up-

Tremors ran all the way down Teo’s body as he tensed and released. That was it, though, wasn’t it. Just like the roof and the speeder, Corso wouldn’t look at him. Teo would have to make him.

He swallowed hard, panting. Yeah. That was good. _Look at me_ , an order growled as he fisted his hand in Corso’s hair, tilted his head back to reveal budding hickeys on his throat. _I said fucking look at me!_ , coupled with a slap to the face meant to startle instead of bruise.

And he wouldn’t, which made Teo’s stomach curdle a little, but he ignored the sick feeling in favor of imagining forcing his fingers against Corso’s plush lips, prising his mouth open, hot wet heat on his fingertips as he chattered idle, casual threats. _Be a good boy, and I won’t hurt you, I’ll just take what I want and be done and you can go back to your perfect little life._

Because that was what Corso wanted, wasn’t it? Some ranch house just like his parents with some girl he could protect, and he was so bewildered that Teo didn’t want the same thing, like playing house was the only thing anybody in the galaxy ever aspired to. Like his idea of goodness was the only right way to live. As though nobody ever wanted anything _more_.

Teo built the fire of petty anger as he imagined shoving his fingers into Corso’s open mouth, making him gag and drool; he’d be so pretty all messed up.

_You gag too easy, I’ll have to break you of that. Swallow, or it’s gonna get really unpleasant for you here in a minute._

The thought of teaching small-town Corso how to give a blowjob was electrifying, and Teo tightened his hand at the base of his cock, rolling his hips to slough off the temptation to bring himself off already. He wanted to stay in the fantasy a little longer.

Keeping his thumb hooked in Corso’s mouth, he opened his pants and drew out his cock, its slim curve alien to anyone who was used to Human dick. They had a long-standing joke that he had tentacles down there; he was darkly pleased when his fantasy-Corso recoiled in horror. _Yeah, that’s right, farmboy, I’m not Human; I know it’s scary. I’m still gonna fuck that pretty mouth of yours._

Teo bit his lip, speeding up as he pictured those full lips sliding around the head of his cock, Corso’s face twisting into a grimace at the taste- every boy he’d ever done this with was the same- but opening his mouth obediently. _That’s right. Good boy. There we go. Look at me, look up,_ but the fantasy boy still didn’t and wouldn’t, that stubbornness showing again, and with a vengeful shove Teo thrust his hips and longed for the way Corso’s dreads would feel tangled up in his hands.

_I said look at me! See me, goddammit!_

Despairing, Teo used the memories of Denton and others, remembering instead of imagining a mouth around his dick, hands on his hips, soft eyes looking up at him. Because Corso wouldn’t and wasn’t going to, would never look at Teo the way he wanted, wasn’t ever- Teo wrenched himself back on track, trying to stay angry so he didn’t cry. Dreadlocks wrapped around his hand, pulling Corso’s pretty face down, thinking so frantically that it felt like begging- _look at me, see me, notice me, for fuck’s sake just look- look at me, please-_

In the fantasy, Corso did, finally flickered his eyes upwards. Unable to bear what he might see there, Teo clenched his eyes shut and lost himself in the memory of tight warm heat wrapped around his cock, the thin satisfaction of claiming and using an anonymous someone he would never see again, and bucked up into his own hand as he came.

Soundless relief filled his world for a few moments, his legs shaking with the force of it. When he blinked his eyes open, they were wet around the edges, his chest tight.

Dizzy, Teo leaned his head back, staring at his blurry ceiling and letting the tears fade away. The anger drained away, washed off by the chemical release of his climax, and he was left empty and scoured-out. He wondered if he really felt that way about his best friend, all that deeply-buried resentment coming out at once. Was that who he was?

Gingerly, like tonguing at a sore tooth, Teo thought about Corso one more time. His open, guileless smile. His stubborn determination to help anyone who asked him to help them, because that was just what you did, you helped people because they needed helping, _right, Captain?_ Deep, soft brown eyes locked on Teo with gleeful steel, challenging him to be a better man than he’d been when he got up that morning...

Nope. Still in love. Teo couldn’t tell if he was upset or not.

Corso’s sweet expression stuck in his mind’s eye, not the frightened fantasy boy anymore, pure memory ringing with truth. He was so fucking gorgeous when he smiled, when he talked to his guns, when he told stories about his hometown as though Teo couldn’t hear all the things he wasn’t saying. All the friendly affection blazed in Teo’s chest, like now that he’d unleashed it he was never going to be able to call Corso his best friend again without feeling the lie of omission deep in his bones.

Teo wondered why the hell he had to think such ridiculous things, make up stupidly awful pornographic images instead of thinking about the man he loved like he deserved. Just Corso, as he was.

It wasn’t as if it could hurt anything. Right?

Hazy and soft, he stroked at the base of his cock, not quite wilted after his first go-round. Nautolan biology was pretty alright sometimes, even if his hand was absolutely soaked.

Guiltily, he imagined that smile turned on him- not the bright blaze of exhilirated friendship that Corso turned to him on the battlefield, but something soft, so understanding and knowing that Teo clenched his eyes shut against it. He swallowed, hard. The anger from before soured, curdled into shame that sat heavy under his ribs and made him want to curl in a humiliated ball.

 _Hey, baby,_ he could hear Corso’s drawling voice perfectly, recalled from some half-forgotten conversation. _Calm down. It’s alright. It’s all gonna be alright._

Inexplicably petrified, Teo covered his mouth with his hand, a muffled noise escaping despite himself. He shivered all over, gripping his cock tighter as desperate warmth swarmed in his hips.

And Corso was a romantic- he’d told Teo himself he could never screw around with anybody he didn’t love. That he wanted to court and adore his sweetheart, to take care of them.

 _Lemme take care of you, baby,_ the words so low and quiet against the back of Teo’s neck, his tresses quivering all over with the nearness of him- Corso was so careful with his tresses, the foreign tendrils that were probably so disorienting to a human, still courted like a lover’s cat he wanted to win over. _I love you, just lemme take care of you._

Strong arms turned him around to see Corso’s nervous, boyish face and the sweetness of his smile, that shyness that showed itself when Teo got him talking about girls he’d liked or his fantasies about marriage. The way he ducked his head and flushed, the hopeful light in those big brown eyes, aimed right at Teo.

Teo, who would never see that, and didn’t deserve it.

Catching his breath, Teo whipped his hand away from his still-hard dick like it burned. He sat up and looked around the empty room like he was going to find an audience there, judging him. His entire body was tense, hearts pounding like he was being chased, and there was a horrible relief even as his cock throbbed, untouched, against his belly.

He panted for air. The disorientation of the fantasy splintering under his clumsy hands washed over him, and he looked around at his empty walls, inexplicably terrified.

Gods, what would Corso think of him?

The thought made him sit up, cross-legged like a little kid, chastised and humiliated. Teo lowered his face into his cold hands, feeling the blush that heated up his entire face and scrubbing away the tears that welled up.

This was bad. This was so bad. He shouldn’t have done this and now those feelings would never go back in their stupid little box. What if he could never look Corso in the face again? What if every moment of eye contact reminded him that, oh yeah, he jerked off to his best friend thinking about maybe being in _love_ , like a fucking teenager, and Corso would inevitably notice and it would ruin everything right when Teo’s career was finally going the way he needed it to?

Teo groaned deep in his throat, wondering if he could just ram his stupid fat head into the wall hard enough to erase the last hour from his memory. _It couldn’t hurt anything_. Yes, it could, dumbass. Digging his nails into the bases of his tresses for a moment, he scrubbed at his face. And he would have _realized_ that it could fuck up their working relationship, if he’d thought with his brain instead of his dick for ten seconds at a stretch.

Half-forgotten, his cock throbbed in his lap, and Teo’s stomach rolled. Ugh.

There had been more than enough unwanted erections in Teo’s life, and he knew how to deal with them. Planting his hands on the bed, he shoved himself up, relishing the soreness in his legs from hours walking in platform heels, and went to his desk. His datapad was there. He would do his work, make his notes, cross off yet another potential contact from his list. Start linking up the connections between Rogun and the Hutts and Darmas’ information network, and scout for new clients that weren’t double-dealing between criminals who were trying to kill each other.

He’d be Captain Lunulata again, doing a job with his First Mate. And he could put _Teo_ aside, lock him up in that little box with those ugly, needy feelings for his best friend. Because that wasn’t what Corso wanted or needed from him.

Flipping his datapad in his cold hands, Teo sat down and forced himself back to work.


End file.
